Most people in Moscow wondering how to survive on two dollars a day are extreme adventurers visiting exotic countries. But it appears that African states are not the only place where one can survive on such money. The same can be done in a country that has recently joined the Eurasian Economic Union. It is Armenia.
By chance or not, the results of social polls about living standards of the population this year have not been published, but the previous year's results are shocking. According to arka.am, quoting Sociometr Director Agaron Adibekyan, 42% of Armenians live in poverty. The UN puts all people who can spend less than two dollars a day into the poverty category. Those who have only a dollar a day or less are extremely poor, that is over 10% of the population.
About 13% of the population are rich. "Thus Armenian society is polarized even more, splitting into the rich and the poor," says Adibekyan. Concerning the so-called middle class, this category of the population is turning into a stratum, those people emigrate the most.
Another peculiarity of the "labour market" in Armenia is that about 17% of families use transfers to live. Private transfers by individuals to Armenia exceeded $1,153 billion in January-August.
300,000 children in Armenia live without fathers, who are trying to earn money abroad. "Poverty among children is very common today... And members of the family take the child's documents from school to send him abroad to make money, many force children to beg for money," says Anna Safaryan, an advisor of the Armenian ombudsman for children.
Armenian experts wonder how the government drove the country into a situation when the republic is being compared with African states, what "gift" does it take to make about half of the population poor.
Even according to official data, 35% of the population live in poverty. The country is ahead of Bangladesh (31.5%), Colombia (34.1%), Paraguay (32.4%) and Kosovo (34.5%). Armenia was "outdone" by Honduras (66%), the Central African Republic (62%), Zambia (60.5%), Togo (58%), Swaziland, South Sudan and Guinea.
The consumer potential of two dollars is different all over the world. People in China can buy a lot more food than in Armenia, where about half of the population eats mostly bread and potatoes. The problems were the same 10 years ago, but the government forecast that the poverty level would drop to 19%. There is a little over two months before 2015, yet it is a mystery what will reduce the poverty in such little time. Yerevan refers to the Eurasian Economic Union, realizing that without solving domestic problems, the threat of social tensions among the less wealthy parts of the population is quite high.
